Roughly 12,000 children in Khuzestan province, southwest Iran, are being deprived of their education and, according to Zeinab Fathali Poor, an expert in Khuzestan’s Social Welfare Bureau, many of them are prevented from attending school just because they don’t have shoes.
Quoted by the state-run Asr Iran news agency, Zeinab Fathali Poor said, “over 12,000 children in Khuzestan are deprived of education, many of whom just have no shoes to go to school.”
“Many of children in the province are stopped by very basic necessities as many of them just do not have a pair of shoes to go to school,” she added.
Poverty and school dropouts in Iran
The regime’s corrupt policies and rising prices are forcing students to drop out or school at an accelerating pace.
Jahan-e San’at state-run newspaper issued shocking figures on September 23, 2018: “The number of children deprived of education is approximately 7 million in Iran.” The report added, “Out of every 3 Iranian youth aged 6-18, one has either quit education or has not enrolled at all.”
This is while many children in far-off regions have no access to any schools, in addition to abovementioned problems.
This is how the poor Iranian children who are deprived of their right to education, end up into street peddling, child labor or become street children with no right to livelihoods and dignity, and drowned in social crisis.
The Iranian regime’s treacherous policies towards the education system has created a real national crisis.
State-run news agency ILNA published a report on September 21 titled “Many students will drop out soon!” and drew a grave perspective for Iranian students saying: “It appears that if things stay as they are, drop-out numbers, especially for girls, will rise. As things are, low-income families, especially in deprived regions, prefer to just ‘survive’. So they must choose between eating enough and continuing their children’s education, and naturally, they will choose survival. On the one hand, living costs and education costs have multiplied, and on the other hand, free education plans have become a thing of the past. In such conditions, there are few low-income families who can pay the cost of their children’s education, especially girls. The red alarm is already shining for a few months. While salaries are still 70 percent behind the increase of life costs, education should be free for everyone and students from low-income families should receive subsidies for stationery and other educational assistance tools. Otherwise, soon we will face a high rate of illiterates and half illiterates.”
